Day One: The Yggdrasil Phenomenon
by Fairyhaven13
Summary: It's like going down the Rabbit Hole. Except you're at Disney World, and the hole is a coaster track, and you're on a bike, and the hole is spiraling out of control in every direction, and Disney World is on fire, and the hole is on fire, and the track is on fire, and the bike is on fire, and you're on fire, and everything is on fire. And also there's toons, like, everywhere? What?
1. My job orientation didn't go so well

I just had to start my job on the day when everything went mad. That's just my luck, isn't it? It's either the worst bad luck, or the crappiest end of good luck. Never in between. It's like the great DM in the sky threw out the dice to roll for luck, got a couple of question marks instead of a number, and just shrugged and wrote it down.

I'm sorry, let me start over.

I was recently hired as a brand new secretary for Animal Kingdom, which is one of the four main parks in the Florida branch of Disney World. It's half zoo, and half mythology and archeology based rides, like Dinosaur and Expedition Everest. It's the one with the big tree in the middle, if that helps. They call it the Tree of Life, because it towers over everything in the park, and carved into the cement-pressed branches are hundreds of animals that stand sentry over all the guests. If Disney is good at anything, it's dressing up cement to look like nature, and boy, is the Tree pretty. Besides the Cinderella's Castle over in Magic Kingdom, I'd say it's the neatest landmark of all the parks at Disney World.

Because I was a secretary, I didn't wear a fancy outfit and wander around the park like most cast members. I was to work in the offices in the back of the park, accessed by those tunnels you need a golf cart to get through. You'd think that sounds magical until you're there. It's literally just a bunch of staff rooms situated under the park, and it looks like any other office, though it also comes with little snack bars and a tiny barber shop. Nice, but not extraordinary. If you pay for the Keys to the Kingdom tour, you can see most of the main tunnels running under Magic Kingdom and get all the mechanics of the pipeworks and electricity explained to you. It's fascinating. It's the first thing a Magic Kingdom cast member is going to learn on the job, because that's where all the break rooms are, and... wait.

Doesn't Animal Kingdom... not have tunnels running beneath it? That's just a Magic Kingdom thing, and... no. No, the Animal Kingdom must have those tunnels, because how else would I have been there to start my first day? I was definitely in the tunnels, and I was definitely at Animal Kingdom when this started, right?

I wasn't actually working-working that day. It was my initiation, and I was supposed to shadow my new boss to learn the ropes. Because I wasn't an official team member yet, that meant I didn't need to wear the uniform yet. In my excitement-how can I not be excited to work at Disney World, even as just a secretary?-I decided to celebrate by accessorizing. I wore a headband with little, pink Cheshire Cat ears and one of those tee-shirts with, "We're all mad here!" on the front and the Cheshire Cat's tail printed on the back. The shirt I got at Hot Topic, and the hairband was being sold by a craft artist at a ComicCon. I was pretty pumped to find it there. You can tell who my favorite character is.

I expected to see lots of sleepy worker's getting ready for the day, walking to and fro down the tunnels and talking on walkie-talkies. That's how it was during my tour at Magic Kingdom. However, as I made my way to the offices, the corridors were strangely empty. There wasn't a soul in sight. I knew I wasn't early; it was just after park opening. There should have been people there. But, I didn't run into anyone.

It made me a little uneasy. I had a map of the offices, so I wouldn't get lost, but it still would have been nice to see other cast members around. People I could ask for guidance, or at least, people whose presence made me feel like I was where I was supposed to be. When you go to work in the morning, you expect to see other people that you can say "good morning!" to, or grunt in tired sympathy due to a poor night's sleep, or ask how their week's going. I felt like I was intruding on something. Like I was being watched, but nobody was there.

There was a whirring noise that sounded distantly down the halls. Considering there was a whole network of pipes and wires above me, I expected the noise. It was a little odd that it came from the walls rather than the roof, but I didn't want to overthink it. I was already much too nervous about making a good impression for my initiation. Was my headband too much? Should I have worn something a little more business-casual than a tee and jeans? Before I left home, should I have focused more on tidying my hair and taming it down with spray than on digging through my drawer for my Stitch socks? This place might have been all about helping people have fun, but I was still supposed to be a Mature Adult now, getting my own job to pay for my own apartment. As much as I was proud of my Disney merchandise, I was also worried about seeming too childish, or worse, weirdly obsessed. I didn't have that much merchandise at home; that's why it had taken so long to find those darn socks. They were my only Disney pair. But, then, absolutely nobody was going to see my socks today, so why was I still thinking about this?

Finally, I made it to the office I had seen on my tour (of Animal Kingdom? Right?). It was a smaller one, tucked away in a corner of the facility, quiet and unimportant. I wasn't working in a bigger capacity, like customer service or maintenance supervision; I was a backup center when people got put on hold too long and needed to be switched over. I was also going to send out emails and do a bit of data entry. Nothing special, but it was mine, and I was happy to have it.

I stepped inside, eager to get away from the weird emptiness of the halls. I hoped my boss could explain where everyone was. Maybe they were having a big meeting above ground. If that was the case, though, my boss might be there, too. That would mean an awkward period of sitting and waiting alone for her to come back. There should have been an office phone line, though, connected to the park's network, and failing that, a set of walkie-talkies in the desks. So, if nobody was there, then I could still contact somebody and figure out what I was supposed to do next.

To my relief, my boss was there, crouched behind her desk and looking very tense. What was she so focused on? Cleaning a mess, maybe, or fixing an adapter cable on her computer tower? There wasn't a whole lot to do from the foot of a desk, but whatever she was doing, she sure looked cross about it. I was happy to see her, but now even more nervous. If she was busy, I didn't want to make a bad impression by interrupting. Now I was starting to feel silly for wearing my cat ears. It wasn't very professional.

When she saw me, though, she didn't comment on it. Her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. I halted uncertainly. What had I done wrong? Was I not supposed to be here?

"You - you're here!" She gasped, running over and grabbing my arm. Her fingers dug into my skin like a lifeline, painfully desperate. I flinched, my excitement draining away and replaced by dread. "How did you get here?"

"I, I just walked in." My voice trembled. "I'm sorry, what did I do wrong?"

My boss shook her head like that didn't make sense. "You mean you didn't see them? You got past them? How - what door did you use?"

I shook my head. "Got past who? I have a pass to get through security, if that's what you mean, but I haven't seen anyone down here." The whirring sound, which should have been blocked by the office walls, was getting louder. I wondered if it was my anxiety inflating it. I wondered if I had somehow gotten myself disciplined, or possibly fired, before I could even work one shift.

"Of course you haven't!" She shook me a little. I yelped and squirmed to get loose. There was a look in her eyes that I didn't like, something worse than panic. "They, they're all-" She stopped talking, twisting to look at the door with something terrible dawning on her face. "Do you hear that?" I opened my mouth to ask what, but then I knew. The whirring was getting louder. It was getting closer. It wasn't just whirring. There were clicks in it, and odd creaks and scrapes. Like something heavy and metallic was slowly dragging itself down the halls.

Suddenly, the tunnels didn't feel so ordinary or fascinating anymore.

My boss spun around, gripping me so hard it hurt, and threw me at a desk on the side. The desk that was going to be mine today. I hit it hard, trying to catch myself with my arms, but only succeeding in bruising both my side and my funny-bone.

"Hide!" The woman hissed at me, then she dove for her own desk, crawling under it. Something sharp scratched at the door, sounding like nails on a chalkboard. I blanched and swung myself under my desk, squeezing behind the long side of it and hoping I was blocking myself from the unknown assailant's view. My headband slid against the underside of the desk, but didn't come off. I could see my boss's terrified face peering at me across the room.

My arms were trembling so hard that I had to hug myself keep from rattling the furniture. This couldn't be real. Things like this didn't happen at Disney World. The security at this place was like that of an independent city, practically a police force, including canine units. They had backup systems upon backup systems. An attack like this shouldn't have been possible. Where were all the people? Where were all the cast members, the staff?

My boss's voice repeated in my head. "They, they're all..." All what? What happened to them? They couldn't be all dead, there were hundreds of them. But, then, there were hundreds of them, so why hadn't I run into anyone since I parked in the staff lot that morning? Where were they? Why didn't I see any security when I went through... through the staff door... I had come in through the staff door, hadn't I?

The door scraped, scraped, cracked. A slit that grew larger, shattering in gentle ripples around the metal. Sharp tools poked through like fingers prying the door open. The blades curled around the metal rip and pushed, and with a defeated creak, the door was pried from its hinges and fell to the floor. The thud echoed in my ears, but I didn't hear it, too horrified by what I saw.

The blades were fingers. The thing in the hall wasn't human. And, this couldn't be real.

What stood in the doorway looked like it was supposed to be one of the animatronics from the rides. Supposed to be.

It was ten feet tall and canine in shape, and only parts of it were covered in the Disney standard faux fur. The rest were harsh metal; chunky joints, rusted bolts, and wickedly sharp digits. The face was the worst of it. Its jaw was full of broken, metal teeth, and the lower jaw hung limp against its neck. Its eyes glowed yellow, and its snout was lifted in an imitation of a sniff.

My head hurt when I looked at it. It couldn't be real. This was a nightmare, something produced by my anxious brain before my real first work day. Things like this only happened in cheap Five Nights at Freddy's knockoffs, not real life. I needed to get a grip and wake up.

I pressed myself to the wall and my hands over my eyes. I had to wake up, I just had to wake up.

My head hurt worse. My bedsheets did not appear around me. This couldn't be real.

A horrible noise punctured my panic. It rattled with an electric screech. It almost sounded like a cackle.

I uncovered my eyes. Large, metal legs were walking past my desk, each step a whir-thunk, whir-thunk. They were so close, within a foot or two. They made my head ache, like my eyes were struggling to see them right. The colors were fluctuating between rusty gray and a brighter hue I couldn't place.

"I see you."

The voice was deep and smug. I almost screamed. My boss did scream, her voice cutting off in a strangled gasp when the monster reached under her desk and plucked her out by her neck. All I could see now were her feet dangling in the air. She struggled to shout, but no words would come out. She swung and kicked her legs with fevered enthusiasm, an enthusiasm which slowly waned into stilted swaying.

"Don't look so afraid." The thing chuckled again in that horrible, robotic way. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm just making sure you join your friends. You don't want to miss the party."

Until that moment, I had been frozen in abject fear. Now, I was still afraid, but I was extremely aware that I did not want to join the party, whatever that meant. Right then, it looked like it just meant dying.

Her legs were going limp. She was dying, and I didn't know how to help her. I couldn't wrestle a big, killer robot. Maybe I could get help, but I still didn't know where anyone was, and I wouldn't be able to before my boss was dead. I didn't think I could sneak past without the monster noticing me. Tears flooded my eyes. I was watching someone die. I was so useless.

"Run."

The word was barely distinguishable among her dying breaths, but it was enough for the wolf-bot to stop chuckling. I forced myself to peek under the table; the monster apparently had eyelids, because they were squinted at my boss in suspicion. Her eyes were bugging out in a way that would haunt me for life. They flicked to look at me. Then, so did the robot.

For a split second, I was frozen again. Then the monster began to turn to fully face me, and I screamed, flinging myself out from under the desk and towards the door. Behind me, there was a sickening crack. My only ally in this was gone. I was alone.

I skidded into the hall, almost falling over and trying not to lose my momentum. Heavy footfalls crashed against the cement behind me. I didn't dare turn to look at my pursuer, pushing my legs to run faster than I ever had before, the feet to stretch further for each step. I felt like a long-jumper in an Olympic marathon; it was like my mind couldn't handle the surreal danger it was in.

Instead of running the route I took to get to the office, I took the way I knew would lead directly into the park. Maybe I could find some security up there. I might also lead the monster directly to the guests, but it would turn around and hunt them anyway if I ran to the parking lot and got killed. I needed help.

For some reason, the thudding behind me didn't grow closer as I ran. The thing was cackling again. It was toying with me. There was no way I was running as fast as it felt like I was. My muscles were already burning, and unless the robot was more decrepit than it looked, it should have caught me easily. It was just waiting for me to stumble, or to wear out and give up. I couldn't let myself give it the satisfaction.

Stairs came into view, materializing in a hall to my right, and I skidded again to run up them. Claws raked the back of my shirt, and I screamed, pain lancing up my spine. I stumbled and threw myself up the steps, desperately climbing my way to freedom.

The footsteps stopped behind me. So did the cackling, replaced by a louder whirring that might have equated to a "hmm." I didn't bother to check and see why.

The door at the top flung open at my weight, slamming into the outer wall. I emerged in the cement roots of the Tree of Life, just around the corner from the queue for A Bug's Life. No guests turned to look at me in surprise, because no one was there. Not a soul. A Disney World park was completely empty at opening hours. The wrongness hit me like a slap to the face.

Something crunched under my feet.

Despite my terrified rush, I glanced down to see what I stepped on. It was a discarded pair of sunglasses. I kicked the shards away, hoping I got no glass in the sole of my shoe. My eyes followed the shards as they slid away, catching on another object down the path

A kid's sandal. Small and pink, left and forgotten.

Past that was a baseball cap. An autograph book. A Mickey-shaped ice cream bar melting into the sidewalk.

Whirs and clicks filled the air. Realization dawned on me, then horror; my face probably looked like my boss's had when she was still alive. A look worse than panic.

I ran for one of the shrubberies lining the queue and jumped into a bush, pulling the branches and leaves around me for cover. Twigs jabbed at my skin and buried themselves in my hair, scraping sharply against my aching back. There were a lot of sounds coming from the Bug's Life theater entrance around the corner, and I did not want to see what the source was.

The door to the tunnels was still open, and now I could see the wolf-bot standing there, sniffing the air. My head hurt so much; needles of pain were shooting inwards from behind my eyes, getting hotter every second. I braced one hand on my temple like I could hold my skull together, and another on my mouth to stifle my breaths. The needles seemed to travel down my skull and into my spine where the monster had struck me. I had to be bleeding, but I couldn't check.

Slowly, the thing stepped out onto the sidewalk, nose wavering back and forth before aiming at my bush. It walked towards me, gradually and with purpose. I took my hand off my head and put it over my other hand, pressing on my mouth hard to keep from screaming again.

It lowered its head and looked directly at me. Right at me. It saw right through the leaves around me and stared straight into my eyes. The pain in my head turned white-hot, and I thought that passing out would at least keep me from feeling my death. A small mercy.

Then its eyes drifted upwards, looking at the top of my head instead. Its lids narrowed. It hummed.

Then... I don't know how to put this.

It was like my eyes glitched. Like when you press your hands too hard against them and see spots and flashes everywhere. Except, instead of everywhere, it was just on the robot. Fiery pain laced up my eye sockets. I almost blacked out then and there, but somehow, the fear kept me awake. The wolf sparked like the sky on the Fourth of July, and I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. Its colors were shifting again, fluctuating between metallic and something like... Technicolor. I closed my eyes and grit my teeth against the pain. When I opened them, the robot was gone.

In its place was a cartoonish wolf in red overalls, a shiny, black tophat on his head to match his black fur. Real fur, not the animatronic stuff. This was no animatronic, not with the way his face moved, not with the way the skin creased under his newly-irised eyes, and not with the way his chest moved in and out with his breaths.

He was still looking just above my head, eyes narrowed and mouth quirked in confusion. Yellowed teeth poked out under his lips, no longer metal or uneven. He scratched his head, then shrugged. "Guess I don't need to get you to join the party. You're already here."

For some reason, those words scared me more than anything else that had happened.

I recognized him now, without the metal and rust disguising him. He was the Big Bad Wolf from the old Disney cartoons. That didn't make any sense. He was an extremely obscure character. He never came out for parades or holiday events. Even on Halloween, when they played a bit of his theme song during the fireworks display, he didn't come out to meet guests. There wasn't any ride in Disney with him in it, either, so why was his animatronic here?

I couldn't begin to address the transformation. It had to be a head injury, or a hallucination brought on by fear, I didn't know. With how much my head had been hurting, I could very well see having a serious concussion.

Oddly enough, though my head wasn't hurting so bad now that the colors had stopped shifting.

Even odder, the wolf have me another confused look, then turned and walked away. After all that cat-and-mouse, after killing someone in front of me and making it clear he would do the same to me... he just left.

I stayed frozen in the bush for a while. No other monsters came down the path, though the noises from the theater didn't get any quieter. No guests came by either. I was alone. My boss was dead. There were monsters in the park, in real life. Everyone was gone. My eye sockets were still sore. I rubbed my temples and the tears from my eyes, then reached up to pull the headband off, hoping for some relief.

When my fingers brushed the fabric of the cat ears, I felt fur instead. I snatched my hand away. Then, I cautiously brought it back to touch again. Nerves that shouldn't have existed broadcast messages into my brain, telling me the ears were being touched.

That wasn't possible.

I gripped the ear and yanked. More pain shot down my skull, and the headband wouldn't come off. I grabbed other ear and tried again. More pain, and it wouldn't come off.

That. Wasn't. Possible.

None of this was possible. None of this could be real. And yet, here I was, hiding for my life in a bush, chased by monsters, my boss dead, and I had four ears.


	2. Things are getting weird

I was supposed to be shadowing my new boss today.

It's hard to do that if she's dead.

I was still in shock over it. My head was hurting less than before, which was good, because it felt like it was melting just a few minutes ago. My eye sockets were still sore, however, and my scalp was smarting where I'd tried to yank off my own ears.

Not my human ears. My cat ones. The cat ears that I apparently now had. I had four ears.

_I'm going insane..._

That was certainly one possibility. I didn't know how to be sure of that; how does one tell when they're out of their tree? I'd read a lot of psychological horror where a character's delusions seem so real that it's impossible to distinguish reality from fantasy. How was I supposed to know where the transition between the sanity and insanity was? How much of the normal part of this morning had been me being delusional? Everything seemed fine when I'd entered the Magic Kingdom tunnels this morning. I mean, the Animal Kingdom tunnels. Animal Kingdom had tunnels. Didn't it? Didn't it? I... I wasn't sure anymore.

Another was that I was having a nightmare, which was the nicest possibility, because it would mean eventually I'd be back in my bedroom, snuggled in nice, soft bedsheets and hugging my stuffed animals. I was pretty sure you weren't supposed to feel blindingly hot pain in your dreams, though. That was unfortunate. Or, well, for me at least; probably fortunate for my stuffed bulbasaur, Bilbosaur, because surely I would be strangling him in a death grip during a dream like this.

I flinched at the poor word choice, trying not to think of my boss's bulging eyes. Moving on.

Considering how much my head had been hurting recently, this could be one of those sci-fi deals where my brain was making up a bunch of crap to keep it safe from a horrible injury. In which case, was it better to sit here and wait it out, or go along with it? In real life, did hallucinations give you a specific goal to actually help you save your brain, or was that just Star Trek nonsense?

A few leaves from the bush I was hiding in tickled the inside of my new ears. Instinctively, I flicked them, brushing the leaves away. Oh, great. I had instincts for my cat ears, now. That meant my brain was making new neuron pathways that were never meant to exist, and that was something I did _not _want to think about.

Doing that made brought me back into reality(?) a bit, though, and I became more aware of my senses. My legs were mad at me for pushing myself so hard through the tunnels. I told them to get over it. Branches were poking into my bruised sides where I'd hit the desk earlier, but more uncomfortably, they were prickling at my back where the Big Bad Wolf clawed me.

Oh, crap, right, I might have been wounded. I scooted a branch aside to reach an arm around, wincing when I felt my spine sting, and my fingers came back red. Yep, definitely wounded.

_This was my favorite shirt, too._

Priorities.

Well, if I was bleeding, the bush was probably not helping the wound any. That meant I had to get out of the bush. But, I still didn't know if there were any other monsters nearby, and I could still hear the odd noises coming from the Bug's Life theater. Although, now that I thought about it, the noises didn't sound like whirring and clicking anymore. They hadn't since the Big Bad Wolf had turned from a robot into a toon. I still didn't know how to wrap my head around that, but the shift in noises meant that there had been _something_ real(?) about it. Now, it sounded more like the shuffling of actual feet, some sort of insectoid buzzing and fluttering, and the occasional annoyed voice. I did _not_ want to be seen by the voice's owner.

The part of the queue I was hiding on was hidden from view, though, if one was looking from the theater's entrance. The Tree of Life's giant, cement roots made plenty of alcoves and barriers between me and the sounds, so if I was careful, nobody would see me.

I hesitated. I really needed to check on the wound.

Slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible, I pushed a few branches away and slid out of the shrubbery. I probably had dirt stains on my jeans, but that really didn't matter right now. As I moved, my back stung worse. I stifled a hiss of pain and gingerly straightened up, reaching a hand to my back again. Then I froze, the shock fading to be replaced by yet more terror.

There was something sticking out of my spine.

My fingers slid over the lump, repulsion rising as I registered that the invader was soft. It was also sticky with blood, and seemed to bunch up around my lower back, making a disgusting wad of pain. I kept prodding it, which hurt, but I couldn't figure out its shape. Then my brain kicked in, and I remembered that I had a phone.

I immediately felt like slapping myself. How could I have forgotten my phone? I mean, it wasn't like it would have worked in the tunnels; the layers of cement and wiring blocked all signals, and nobody could even call emergency numbers down there. That's why they used their special walkie-talkies to communicate. I would have to get my hands on one.

At the moment, though, I could call the police. I pried the phone out of my pocket with the hand that wasn't bloodstained and flicked the emergency option on the lock screen. _9-1-1._ I held the phone to my ear and waited for the ring. And waited. And waited.

The call never went through.

I looked back down at the screen. It said there was no signal. That wasn't right. I was out of the tunnels and there wasn't even a roof over my head at the moment. The signal should have been fine, but it wasn't. It couldn't get through.

What did that mean? Was someone jamming it somehow? I knew that there were some businesses that actually had electronic phone jammers to prevent staff from being on their phones at work. Disney didn't have anything like that, because there were thousands of park guests who actually needed their phones, so it would have to have come from an outside source. That, or the phone tower itself was down.

That was a foreboding thought. How far did this attack reach? Was it just this park, or all of the parks? Was there a band of killers on the highways, too, destroying means of communication and keeping us isolated? That sounded like something out of a movie, but then, I had just been chased by a killer robot. And I had cat ears. Anything was possible.

Heart heavy, I exited the call function and turned on the camera, doing what I'd meant to do in the first place. I used my bloody hand to lift the shreds of my shirt out of the way and took a picture of my back. Then I looked at the picture and froze _again._ Why couldn't anything ever be simple? Why did everything today have to be a stupid mindscrew?

The lump on my back wasn't a lump. It was a tuft of pink fur protruding from my skin, coming from a rip that had definitely been made by a claw. It looked like the Big Bad Wolf had torn it out of my spine. I grit my teeth and decided to forgo gentle prodding, grabbing the tuft with my fingers and _pulling._

Immediately, the pain in my back burned brighter, then lessened, like my spine had been curled in a knot and finally loosened. I kept pulling, the bloody fur unraveling from my lower spine and into the back of my pants-crap, that meant I had a bloodstain on the back of my pants, that was just great. Finally, it was all out, the pain and the fur, and dangling loosely on the ground. I pulled the end of it around and twisted to see.

Just as I thought, it was a gross looking, bloody, pink-striped Cheshire Cat tail. That figured. Why not add more insanity to the list?

A hysterical noise tried to escape my throat. I didn't know if it would be a laugh or a sob, but either way, I couldn't afford to make noise right now. I clapped a hand over my mouth, realized it was the bloody hand, put my phone away and used my clean hand instead. I must have looked like an anime serial killer. Yandere Simulator had nothing on this. I had to choke on another fevered laugh.

I had cat ears _and_ a tail. What was happening to me? Was I making a transformation like the Big Bad Wolf had? The thought brought bile up to the back of my mouth, and I hastily swallowed it back down. I couldn't afford to think about that right now. I didn't know what to do about it, so therefore, there was no point. What should I do, then? Find someone to help, maybe, if anyone was around. Find a walkie-talkie, definitely, because somebody had to be out there. Someone had to be.

The hair on the back of my neck rose, and I felt the fur on my new tail spike up. I was being watched.

When I looked around, though, I saw no one. I was still backed against the edge of the queue, so there was no one behind me. No one was in front of me, either, and all that was to the sides were the giant roots.

The giant roots covered in animals.

The thing about the Tree of Life, if you've never been there, is that the entire thing is made to look like animals have been carved into the cement "wood." There are huge ones towards the top of the tree, like a lion and a giant eagle, so that people walking around the park can see it from further away. In the roots, there were smaller ones, like insects and little rhinos and antelope, so that people in the Bug's Life queue could have stuff to look at.

At the moment, every single carving was looking at _me._

All of them. The beetles going up the curve of the root, the giraffe standing in the corner, the crane on the wider face of it. They were twitching, scooting around the rough "bark," peeking around each other to get a look at me. Their eyes were wide in... anger? Fear? I didn't know. They weren't blinking. They weren't looking away.

My mouth opened and closed a couple times, still covered by my hand, and it was all I could do to keep from screaming. But, what was the point? It wasn't like being quiet would make them see me any less. These things could tell whatever was nearby that I was here. I needed to leave. Now.

I rose unsteadily to my feet, swaying a little and almost falling backwards into the bush. One hand started to reach for the cement root to brace against, but I snatched it away and hugged myself instead. In my haste and fear, I didn't think about where I was going, only that I wanted to go _away_, and my feet stumbled down the path. The carvings' eyes followed me as I went. It wasn't until I'd turned the corner that I realized I was walking towards the theater.

It. Was. _Covered._ In. Bugs.

Small ones. Big ones. Flying ones, crawling ones, squirming ones. They were slimy and covered in eyes and they chittered and _gross gross gross gross-_

My arms flapped in panic, like I could shake off the heebie-jeebies coating my skin. It was a scene straight out of _A Plague Tale: Innocence,_ except with insects instead of bubonic rats. They covered every surface of the theater entrance, swarming up around the roots and the sidewalk in a writhing mass.

Some of them looked like the ones from the attraction; I recognized the butterfly wings from the bug-curtain at the start of the show. There were a few face-sized spiders like the ones that dropped from the ceiling. However, many of the bugs looked random, though still cartoonish and brightly colored. Purple beetles and giant flies and orange, fuzzy caterpillars. None of them could hold a candle to the one at the top, though.

It was a spider the size of a trailer. It was greenish and fat, toxic-looking grime dripping from its body. Unlike the other bugs, it didn't have a toon face. It had a very realistic-bile rose in my throat again-face, with four great fangs hanging below its eyes. I didn't recognize it from any Disney film. That could have been because it wasn't in one, or it could have been because I was trying so hard not to puke that I couldn't think of it.

Thankfully, the spider wasn't looking my way. It was concentrating on crawling up the base of the tree, weaving a thick web around the roots as it went. The web wasn't catching any of the other bugs in it; they continued to swarm unhindered around the threads. The spider seemed less focused on catching anything in the web, and more on making it climb higher and higher up the tree. The threads were silvery gray, and almost seemed to pulse, which was definitely not like a normal spider web.

I couldn't even begin to puzzle the purpose of this. I couldn't push my nausea aside enough to think past _gross gross gross gross-_

"What do you think you're doing?"

This time, I couldn't hold back the scream. It jumped out of my mouth with the exuberance of a child freed from detention and flew away. I spun around and saw a seven foot grasshopper glaring at me. In sharp contrast to the spider, this one was very recognizable and _very_ Pixar, with his large head, round eyes, and deep sneer. It was Hopper, the villain from the _Bug's Life_ movie and the animatronic from the Bug's Life theater.

From this close, I could see the layers of leathery chitin on his face. They creased his scowl deeper, turning it from mere irritation into a death glare. What made for a neat character design in animation and on paper was far more disturbing in real life. Every joint, every limb was coated in insect shell. There were no bolts, wires, or pipes poking out from the seams; he wasn't mechanical. He was really and truly a giant bug. Goosebumps danced up and down my skin, feeling like so many mites determined to make my heebie-jeebies permanent fixtures.

I gaped at him, wondering if my time had come. I'd gotten lucky when the wolf left, but there was no way Hopper would make the same mistake.

He crossed one set of arms and glowered. "Well?" I couldn't reply, the scream stole my voice and now I was as mute as Ariel. "Look, _some_ of us have a job to do, here! We can't all stand and stare at people like little freaks!" He jabbed a finger against my head. The digit felt leathery and scratchy from his exoskeleton, and I jerked away, trying to pull myself together.

"Come on, give her a break." Behind Hopper, an ant stood at about my height, rolling his eyes in exasperation. Like Hopper, his chitin was disturbingly real, though the shiny smoothness made it a bit more tolerable than the semi-translucent leather texture. "Yelling at her isn't going to make this go faster."

The grasshopper shifted his glare towards the ant, and it was a wonder he didn't burst into flames then and there. "I don't give people breaks, _Flik."_ He spoke with that grinding slowness that meant he was trying not to kill someone. "We don't have _time_ for breaks. If this twerp doesn't have a job to do, and doesn't get out of my sight in the next ten seconds, I'm going to _give_ her a job to do, and _she is not going to like it._"

That finally got me to snap my jaw shut. I was flabbergasted that he wasn't killing me outright, but ten seconds wasn't exactly a lot of time to make my getaway. I didn't give Hopper a chance to make good on his promise, backing up and running back down the path. I didn't stop running until the chittering of bugs was far behind me, though the sound was loud and clear in my imagination.

That was the second time I'd run into monsters here, and a _whole lot_ of them at once, and not a single one had attacked me. Why? Every other park guest nearby was gone, as evidenced by the dropped personal items I kept tripping over. The wolf hadn't hesitated to strangle my boss to death. But, when he saw my ears, he walked away.

They were acting like... like I was one of them.

I slowed to a stop in the open square. The Tree of Life's roots had given way to a small plaza of buildings, and aside from one or two lost items on the ground, there was no sign of life. My back still stung where the wound bled, and the stupid tail was catching on the hem of my pants, bending upwards in an uncomfortable way against my tailbone. It was probably also smearing more blood on the jeans, too. I needed to get cleaned up. I needed to find a walkie-talkie, and I needed to get help.

I really, really wanted to add, "and avoid all freaky living Disney characters," to the list, but given how Hopper, Flik, and the Big Bad Wolf had acted... maybe I didn't necessarily need to. At least, as long as I didn't annoy anyone like Hopper, or get visibly in their way. This could be something I could take advantage of, somehow; a way to limit my movement a little less, or... to get some information without getting killed, maybe.

I still thought of them as the enemy. One killed my boss, and I still didn't know what happened to all the other people in the park. If Flik knew I was human, would he have tried to talk Hopper down, or would he have joined in tearing me to pieces? The Flik from the movie wouldn't hurt someone like that, but this was not the Flik from the movie. Was it?

There were so many questions I wanted to ask. Why were they here? How were they here? Why and how had I mutated so suddenly? What _was_ I?

The toon... things thought I was one of them. I knew I wasn't. But, the wolf... he'd known I wasn't, either, until he saw me change. He'd watched it, and then he'd left.

I still remembered his words; I was terrified to find out what they meant.

"Guess I don't need to get you to join the party. You're already here."


End file.
